Portions of a business process can be implemented using several different applications that may have various incompatibilities with one another. The incompatibilities can arise from differences in programming technologies, shifting scope in product requirements, differing application development philosophies for different portions of a product, timing with which applications within a product are developed, and so forth. For example, when the scope of an overall set of requirements associated with a business process exceeds the capacities of a single programming team, the overall programming effort for applications to implement the business process may be divided and assigned to different teams which work concurrently. Even if jointly managed, the applications produced by the different teams to implement the business process can have some incompatibilities. As another example, an application can be developed to address a requirement associated with one portion of a business process and another application can later be developed to address an unforeseen issue (e.g., an issue raised by a customer) associated with another portion of the business process that arises at a later time. Even if the applications are not developed by different entities, the applications may have several incompatibilities. The incompatibilities between the applications can be even more drastic if produced by separate entities. Accordingly, several applications, even if intended to interoperate, may not form a cohesive set of applications to implement a business process, but may instead behave, at least in part, as independently operating applications that can have some deficiencies when combined.
A variety of techniques can be employed to close the gaps between incompatible portions of applications, or for removing the inconsistencies between applications which arise despite the fact that, on a semantic level, the individual applications are interrelated. For example, on a user interface level, users can reuse data strings across various applications, for example, by copying and pasting some text from one application to another application. However, this process can be time-consuming and inconvenient for an end-user. Thus, a need exists for systems, methods, and apparatus to address the shortfalls of present technology and to provide other new and innovative features.